Fletcher in the News

A Convenient Threat?

According to the nation’s lawmakers, the United States is now facing the greatest peril since the 9/11 attacks, prompting weeklong closures of 19 diplomatic facilities in the Arabian Peninsula and Africa, evacuations in Yemen, and a worldwide travel alert.

"[This is] one of the most specific and credible threats I've seen, perhaps since 9/11," House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, said Sunday on CBS News' "Face the Nation."…

…In the face of such danger to the homeland, says William Martel, associate professor of international security studies at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, Americans are willing to do whatever it takes.

“[If it is true that] Al Qaeda has regrouped and is a global threat again, that … will drown out debate about the NSA right now,” he told GlobalPost. “It will overwhelm all other concerns. It is such a powerful tendency and instinct in the American public to focus on the threat, and sort the rest out later.”